True clauses, false connections, and indicative conditionals: What Grice got wrongAbstract: The majority of theories of indicative conditionals validate the Principle of Conjunctive Sufficiency. That is, on those accounts, whenever the antecedent, P, and the consequent, Q, are true, the conditional, “If P then Q," is acceptable, whether or not there is a meaningful connection between P and Q. At the same time, almost everyone seems to agree that conditionals without a connection are odd. Gricean explanation of the oddity of missing-link conditionals rests on an observation that such conditionals are rendered highly acceptable only in situations in which a stronger assertion, for instance, that of a conjunction of P and Q, is warranted. Asserting a weaker, less informative conditional is odd because it is a violation of the Maxim of Quantity. In my talk, I will present empirical data that challenge Gricean explanation of why missing-link conditionals are odd. Furthermore, I will argue that these findings can be reconciled with general principles of Gricean pragmatics, but at the cost of giving up Conjunctive Sufficiency.

14.11.2018

Franziska Poprawe (...)

Reasoning without Reasons

The current debate on reasoning centres on two major questions: I) What is reasoning (or inference)? II) What is correct reasoning? Reasoning is here understood as the mental activity through which we derivatively form beliefs and intentions on the basis of some premises. A dominant view in the debate is the so-called Reasons View, according to which (I) the nature and (II) the correctness of reasoning can be explained in terms of normative reasons. Put roughly, the view is that reasoning is a way of responding to reasons and you reason correctly only if the premises are (good) reasons for the conclusion. I first argue that the Reasons View is underdeveloped. Though many authors assume a close relation between reasoning and normative reasons, few defend it in detail. I then argue that recently proposed accounts are untenable. The prospects of the Reasons View look dim. Reasoning is not essentially responding to reasons, and the standard of correctness of reasoning does not derive from normative reasons for belief and action. The arguments suggest that we can explain the nature and correctness of reasoning in more fundamental normative terms. I end my exploring this path towards a novel theory of reasoning.

It is a familiar empirical fact that different scientists with the same broad goal may employ different methods, pursue different theories, and even work within different paradigms. We generally agree, moreover, that we are more likely to achieve research goals as a result of this diversity. For example, developing and testing multiple theories makes it more likely that we ultimately identify the "right" one. That we evaluate the status quo positively does not mean that we have explained it or that we can evaluate the individual scientists positively, though; basic questions remain. First, if each scientist rationally assesses the relevant evidence and rationally chooses which method / theory / paradigm to pursue, how can different scientists make such different choices? It is an open question whether the individual choices that we see are indeed rational. The second question is then how best to explain the current diversity of research. To put it provocatively, do we owe the healthy diversity of science to the irrationality of the scientists? In this talk, I pursue a new hypothesis, namely that scientific diversity arises from rational strategic choices by the individual scientists; that is, the scientists choose rationally given that the consequences to each individual depend not only on their choice, but also on how the other scientists choose. To investigate this hypothesis, I construct a simple model in which two scientists independently choose which of two projects to pursue. Their payoffs depend on whether at least one of them works on the correct project, as well as which of them has done the work. The model shows that for some ways of valuing research success, it is rational for each scientist to sometimes pursue the less promising option (for example because they are less likely to share the credit if successful). I discuss how we should intepret the model, the advantages of this modeling approach, and how to extrapolate from the model to actual scientific practice. I conclude that diversity in research can be rationalized in an important sense and that strategic considerations are an important part of the story.

We not only want to know whether things are the case but also why they are the case. Like other forms of so-called knowledge-wh, knowing why p is commonly analyzed in terms of knowledge-that: One knows why p iff one knows that p because q, for some q. One knows why a particular chemical reaction occurred iff one knows that it occurred because, say, oxygen was introduced. However, in contrast to knowing that p, knowing why p varies in depth and quality. Intuitively, one cannot know better than someone else that the chemical reaction occurred, but one can clearly know better why it occurred. Prima facie, knowing why is gradable. Can knowing why p nonetheless be analyzed in terms of p because q knowledge? And what is the nature of the apparent gradability? In my talk, I tackle these questions, drawing on insights from linguistics, epistemology, and philosophy of science.

My talk examines a proposal for naturalising moral norms inspired by Aristotle, defended originally by Philippa Foot (2001) and subsequently by Michael Thompson (2003, 2004, 2008). This strand of neo-Aristotelianism is of special interest from a Kantian perspective for a number of reasons. First, like Kantian ethics, Aristotelian ethics within this tradition is objectivist. However, and this is considered to be an advantage, it is also resolutely naturalist, unlike some -perhaps most- versions of Kantianism. Secondly, neo-Aristotelean ethics is based on a conception of humanity rather than of rationality. This is considered an advantage for dealing with substantive ethical questions, because Aristotelean ethics is better equipped to deal with the complexity and variety of human life, but also importantly, from a meta-ethical perspective because it has a more plausible account of practical reasoning, one that is more integrated to how human beings actually reason, than the Kantian one. Finally, because legislation is not the core notion of such an ethics, the problem of the authority of the moral law, a problem originally identified by Elisabeth Anscombe (1958) as being particularly tricky for Kant’s moral philosophy, simply does not arise. In summary then, Aristotelian ethics has the resources to address a range of first and second order ethical questions in a way that offers comparative advantages to Kantian ethics. My talk examines some of these questions, narrowing my remit to second-order questions about the nature of the good and the authority of norms. My aim is to motivate a Kantian non-naturalist response to this important neo-Aristotelian challenge.

A growing group of philosophers has recently taken up and extended Carnap's project of explication, which “consists in transforming a given more or less inexact concept into an exact one or, rather, in replacing the first by the second” (Carnap 1950: 3). In contemporary philosophical methodology, these projects go by different names, one of the most prominent being called Conceptual Engineering (see Blackburn (1999), Brandom (2001), Chalmers (2011), Scharp (2013), Eklund (2014, 2015), Cappelen (2018)). In this talk, I’m interested in answering the Nature Question of Conceptual Engineering or what engineering projects in philosophy are. The talk has a negative part and a positive part. In the negative part, I claim that anybody who wants to answer the Nature Question faces two problems: (i) the Unity Challenge — the field is highly disunited, and (ii) the Scope Challenge — we haven’t even reached a consensus about what its scope is. In the positive part, I then indirectly answer the Nature Question by, firstly, looking at issues concerning Unity, and, secondly, issues concerning Scope of Conceptual Engineering. Finally, as part of an answer to the aforementioned challenges, I propose the introduction of Philosophical Engineering.

It is widely held that logic is a priori. It is also widely held that so-called “anti-exceptionalism” about logic, according to which the methods of logic are continuous with that of the sciences, is incompatible with its apriority. This talk explores the nature of this alleged incompatibility and finds that there is room for the a priori within the anti-exceptionalist programme.